Christina Murray Poet Free verse

Time Doesn't Pass There

People tell you to let go
As if every loss is something that just happened
Something physical that once existed
But some of mine never did
I don’t just grieve the ones I lost
I grieve the people they never had the chance to become
I wonder what my sister would laugh like now
And if her hair would still be pink
If we’d call each other when life got hard
If we’d have grown into better friends 
I wonder how age would have changed my mom
Whether she’d have wrinkles around her eyes from smiling 
Whether she’d have grown her hair long
If she’d still be playing the same song on repeat all day long while finding something to keep busy
If she’d be spoiling my children with love and things I said they didn’t need 
There are conversations we’ll never have
And pictures I will never take
Those are the hardest things to just let go
Because they never got the chance to happen
“What if” is a strange place to live
Nothing grows 
But nothing dies 
Time doesn’t pass there
The possibilities stay frozen at the exact moment they became impossible 
They were never real enough to live 
Only real enough to grieve
It’s like they’re waiting for a future that I know will never happen 
Sometimes a smell creates false hope
Sometimes it’s an old song
A birthday or a holiday that used to be full
A child saying something they would have loved
An ordinary moment reminding you someone just isn’t there 
And suddenly you feel it 
You’re mourning a life that only ever existed in imagination
In the land of “what ifs”
People think grief is missing what you had
But sometimes it’s missing what you never got
The sister who would’ve become your best friend and secret keeper 
The mother your children would’ve called for when they scraped their knees
The version of yourself formed by the presence of loved ones
I think that’s why “what ifs” hurt so much
You’re left with questions 
And because no answer ever comes…
The questions never stop asking you

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Alison A Smith nee Howarth July 27, 2026 at 5:27 PM No matter what could have been we must live as though it did. We carry on their legacy so someday someone doesn't say what if about us.